Tampa/Orlando Breweries?

[Airborneguy]

Heading to Tampa next weekend to visit my sister and I found a bunch of breweries online between the two cities. Anyone have any recommendations?

 

[mullenite]

Tampa Bay Brewing Co. is fantastic in Ybor City I always make a stop there for a beer and at least some fries (try the fries dipped in the curry sauce.) They have other beers besides whats on the menu written up on a chalk board in the corner to the right of the bar.

About 10 minutes away from there is Cigar City brewery which is a great production brewery. Very cool people and a great place to check out as they will usually have some beers on tap from Swamp Head here in Gainesville and Dunedin Brewery in Dunedin. You won't have to travel to try those.

In Orlando it's not quite that easy. Orlando Brewing Partners make some good beer but I haven't been too happy with most of them, decent but not great.

 

[coolitamigo]

cigar city, orlando brewing, if you have the time Effinheimer is a nice small brewery that is only an hour or so from orlando.

 

[coolitamigo]

oh and lakeridge winery is an interesting experience if you are into that. picked up some of their muscadine juice last time I went, waiting on my pyment to finish still. I need to check out tampa bay brewing.

 

[chefchris]

do not miss cigar city. that's all i have to say.

 

[mullenite]

http://firkinaround.blogspot.com/2010/07/cigar-city-brewing.html

Cigar City just posted this on Facebook, even though I have been to the brewery several times it was still cool to read so I figure it might be of some interest to you.

 

[Airborneguy]

Thanks for posting that. I'm going to hit them both up for sure. They seem relatively close to each other and should be an easy thing to do in one day.

 

[mullenite]

Tampa Bay Brewing and Cigar City are pretty close. Traffic is a nightmare though so don't do it during rush hour unless you go to Cigar City first.


Also, there is a Whole Foods and a Total Wine right in front of Cigar City, if they don't have bottles of something there you might be able to find them at one of those two places. The manager at Total Wine has hooked me up in the past with beers he had tucked away for himself.

 

[SauceBoss]

yea Effenheimer in Minneola makes some good brews. They arent too far out of Orlando and I am actually planning on taking a trip to the brewery soon.

 

[Airborneguy]

I ended up going to Tampa Bay Brewing Company, which had some really good beer, including a seasonal IPA that this avowed hop hater enjoyed and they even had fried pickles, one of my favorite, but hardest to find appetizers.

I picked up a six pack of Jai Alai while I was down there too, but as previously mentioned, most IPA's disgust me (this one did).